Uzbekistan

The Jadidists and Basmachis

Russian influence was especially strong among certain young
intellectuals who were the sons of the rich merchant classes. Educated in
the local Muslim schools, in Russian universities, or in Istanbul, these
men, who came to be known as the Jadidists, tried to learn from Russia and
from modernizing movements in Istanbul and among the Tatars, and to use
this knowledge to regain their country's independence. The Jadidists
believed that their society, and even their religion, must be reformed and
modernized for this goal to be achieved. In 1905 the unexpected victory of
a new Asiatic power in the Russo-Japanese War and the eruption of
revolution in Russia raised the hopes of reform factions that Russian rule
could be overturned, and a modernization program initiated, in Central
Asia. The democratic reforms that Russia promised in the wake of the
revolution gradually faded, however, as the tsarist government restored
authoritarian rule in the decade that followed 1905. Renewed tsarist
repression and the reactionary politics of the rulers of Bukhoro and Khiva
forced the reformers underground or into exile. Nevertheless, some of the
future leaders of Soviet Uzbekistan, including Abdur Rauf Fitrat and
others, gained valuable revolutionary experience and were able to expand
their ideological influence in this period.

In the summer of 1916, a number of settlements in eastern Uzbekistan
were the sites of violent demonstrations against a new Russian decree
canceling the Central Asians' immunity to conscription for duty in World
War I. Reprisals of increasing violence ensued, and the struggle spread
from Uzbekistan into Kyrgyz and Kazak territory. There, Russian
confiscation of grazing land already had created animosity not present in
the Uzbek population, which was concerned mainly with preserving its
rights.

The next opportunity for the Jadidists presented itself in 1917 with the
outbreak of the February and October revolutions in Russia. In February
the revolutionary events in Russia's capital, Petrograd (St. Petersburg),
were quickly repeated in Tashkent, where the tsarist administration of the
governor general was overthrown. In its place, a dual system was
established, combining a provisional government with direct Soviet power
and completely excluding the native Muslim population from power.
Indigenous leaders, including some of the Jadidists, attempted to set up
an autonomous government in the city of Quqon in the Fergana Valley, but
this attempt was quickly crushed. Following the suppression of autonomy in
Quqon, Jadidists and other loosely connected factions began what was
called the Basmachi revolt against Soviet rule, which by 1922 had survived
the civil war and was asserting greater power over most of Central Asia.
For more than a decade, Basmachi guerrilla fighters (that name was a
derogatory Slavic term that the fighters did not apply to themselves)
fiercely resisted the establishment of Soviet rule in parts of Central
Asia.

However, the majority of Jadidists, including leaders such as Fitrat and
Faizulla Khojayev, cast their lot with the communists. In 1920 Khojayev,
who became first secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, assisted
communist forces in the capture of Bukhoro and Khiva. After the amir of
Bukhoro had joined the Basmachi movement, Khojayev became president of the
newly established Soviet Bukhoran People's Republic. A People's Republic
of Khorazm also was set up in what had been Khiva.

The Basmachi revolt eventually was crushed as the civil war in Russia
ended and the communists drew away large portions of the Central Asian
population with promises of local political autonomy and the potential
economic autonomy of Soviet leader Vladimir I. Lenin's New Economic Policy
(NEP--see Glossary). Under these circumstances, large numbers of Central
Asians joined the communist party, many gaining high positions in the
government of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (Uzbek SSR), the
administrative unit established in 1924 to include present-day Uzbekistan
and Tajikistan. The indigenous leaders cooperated closely with the
communist government in enforcing policies designed to alter the
traditional society of the region: the emancipation of women, the
redistribution of land, and mass literacy campaigns.